The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

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Monday, April 23, 2018

Syria: The Defining Issue of Our Generation - Amir Taheri

by Amir Taheri

By supporting Putin's illusion of victory in Syria, as a larger
version of Chechnya, the pro-Russian constituency in the West merely
prolongs the tragedy.

How could we not understand
that in the anti-war coalition's Manichaean world, the role of evil was
reserved solely for the Western democracies?

Over the past decade or so, Russia has waged war against Georgia
in Ossetia and Abkhazia, attacked Ukraine, annexed the Crimean
Peninsula, turned Chechnya into a pile of rubble and driven thousands
out of their villages in Ingushetia and Dagestan without the "anti-war
coalition" waving a single placard.

So what we have is a "lukewarm war" in which Russia's assets
consist mainly of the anti-West constituencies inside Western
democracies plus the veto power that Russia has in the United Nations
Security Council.

"We are here to protest against the bombing of Syria by Donald Trump
and Theresa May," said the placard-waving young man sporting a ferocious
beard.

"Killing Muslims must be stopped," added the middle-aged lady dressed all in black with a demeanor of a diva.

Our interlocutors were among a handful of activists from the
"anti-war coalition," spending part of their weekend venting their
hatred of Trump and America, and presumably of capitalism and
imperialism in general, in front of the US Embassy in London.

We asked whether they would also demonstrate in front of the Russian Embassy in Bayswater, a posher part of London?

The answer was a chagrined look all around. How could we not
understand that in their Manichaean world, the role of evil was reserved
solely for the Western democracies?

Over the past decade or so, Russia has waged war against Georgia in
Ossetia ad Abkhazia, attacked Ukraine, annexed the Crimean Peninsula,
turned Chechnya into a pile of rubble, and driven thousands out of their
villages in Ingushetia and Dagestan without the anti-war coalition
waving a single placard. When we come to Syria, the anti-war coalition,
one of whose big beasts, Jeremy Corbyn, is now leader of the British
Labour Party, deigns to remember that Russia has been bombing Syria and
killing countless civilians, since 2015.

Under Russian attack from air and land, Syria's most populous city,
Aleppo, has suffered a level of destruction never seen since the Mongol
invasion in the Middle Ages. And yet no anti-war coalition militant,
least of all Corbyn, turned up to demand that the blizzard of death and
destruction released by the Russians stop.

The fact that the minimalist American-British-French missile launches
against Bashar al-Assad's alleged chemical weapons' sites did not
amount to "bombing Syria" as such didn't matter. Nor did our protesters
care about the fact that no one had been killed in the US-led operation
and that "killing Muslims" was a rather exaggerated claim, bearing in
mind that there are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

In some cases, intense hatred shown against Western democracies may
be prompted by self-loathing, a common disease in many other societies,
including Russia. The only difference is that in Western societies,
giving expression to that self-loathing is risk-free, indeed somehow
chic, while it is severely repressed in Russia.

In Washington, London or Paris you could express dissent even beyond
reasonable limits without suffering punishment. In Moscow, however, you
could be shot even in Red Square or, if you flee Russia, risk being
murdered with chemical substances in Gloucester.

In other cases, the pro-Russian position taken by some elements in
the West is prompted by nostalgia for the "good old days" when Soviet
ideology, represented by Mother Russia, challenged the global status quo
and promised a golden future beyond "earth-devouring Imperialism".

All that gives Russia a distinct advantage in what is at times,
erroneously I believe, termed a "new Cold war." In terms of power,
Russia is in no position to challenge the global status quo. With a GDP
of $1.5 trillion, it lags far behind the United Sates with almost $20
trillion. The US military budget is many times more than that of Russia.
And in terms of soft power, including scientific, cultural and artistic
fields, the American "Great Satan" remains far more attractive. People
queue in Moscow and Vladivostok for those easy-to-eat and hard-to-digest
McDonald's meals. But no one lines up in Washington or Paris for a nice
bowl of borscht.

To be sure, Russia is a nuclear "superpower". But its nuclear
arsenal, as President Vladimir Putin has pointed out on occasions, is
old, not to say antiquated. The "new generation" of undetectable nuclear
warheads that Putin promised on the eve of his re-election may still be
a long way down the road. In any case, no one seriously envisages a
thermonuclear war or even a new arms race, if only because Russia lacks
the wherewithal to keep up with the Western Joneses.

So what we have is a "lukewarm war" in which Russia's assets consist
mainly of the anti-West constituencies inside Western democracies plus
the veto power that Russia has in the United Nations Security Council.

In the case of Syria, the two become interlinked. This is why Corbyn,
like his French counterpart Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and other anti-West
leaders in Europe, insist that any Western military intervention in
Syria should first be ratified by the UN Security Council.

Interestingly, they don't demand that Russia's military intervention
should also be subject to approval by the Security Council. This is
because Russia can never muster a majority in the Security Council. (Its
last resolution there, last week, seeking to condemn the US-led missile
attack on Assad's alleged chemical sites, won the votes only of China
and Bolivia!)

In other words, the pro-Russia constituency in the West wants the
Western democracies to give Moscow a veto on their policy without
securing a similar advantage vis-à-vis Russia.

The Russian propaganda scheme in this "lukewarm war" is aimed at
sowing confusion in Western democracies, destroying trust in democratic
leaders and institutions, including the media, and preventing the
formation of a consensus on any major issues.

Thus, while the Western democracies have far more power than Russia
to influence global events, they won't be able to use more than a
fraction of it without Moscow's assent. Russia, however, would be able
to use all of the little power it has.

As things are, Putin, helped by the anti-West constituencies inside
Western democracies, is playing a weak hand well to his advantage. In
most other circumstances, one might have said: Well, why not? Why
shouldn't a weak power try to exploit the adversary's weaknesses?

The problem, however, is that Syria isn't just a power game. It is a
tragedy in every sense of the term. More than half a million people have
died, with a further three million injured. Half the nation's
population has been driven out of their homes and millions driven out of
their country. This conflict has gone beyond the level of popular
uprising, civil war or even regional proxy wars, to become a tragedy
that produces nothing but losers. Syria has become the defining issue of
our generation. To use it as a means of propping up Putin or his second
fiddles, the mullahs of Tehran, in a sinister regional power game is
the height of folly.

By supporting Putin's illusion of victory in Syria, as a larger
version of Chechnya, the pro-Russian constituency in the West merely
prolongs the tragedy.

This article was originally published by Asharq al-Awsat

Amir Taheri, formerly executive editor-in-chief of Iran's premier newspaper, Kayhan, before the Iranian revolution of 1979, is a prominent author based on Europe. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12205/syria-defining-issue Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.